The Portable Veblen: Shortlisted for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction 2016

The Portable Veblen: Shortlisted for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction 2016
Elizabeth McKenzie

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2016A laugh-out-loud love story with big ideas - and squirrelsCan squirrels speak? Do snails scream?Will a young couple, newly engaged, make it to their wedding day? Will their dysfunctional families ruin everything? Will they be undone by the advances of a very sexy, very unscrupulous heiress to a pharmaceuticals corporation?Is getting married even a remotely reasonable idea in the twenty-first century?And what in the world is a ‘Veblen’ anyway?

Copyright (#ulink_815995bc-1e86-5c18-939c-8f2e6b7bbc63)

Fourth Estate

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.4thestate.co.uk (http://www.4thestate.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain by Fourth Estate in 2016

First published in the United States by Penguin Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC in 2016

Copyright © Elizabeth McKenzie 2016

Elizabeth McKenzie asserts the right to be identified as the author of this work.

A portion of this book appeared in The Atlantic

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008160388

Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2015 ISBN: 9780008160401

Version: 2018-09-26

Dedication (#ulink_24671c13-b7d0-56b1-89b5-3de718e234dc)

For James Ross Cox

Epigraph (#ulink_20710070-35f9-5b27-ba5a-fa0481ffc1b1)

“If you love it enough, anything will talk with you.”

—​G. W. CARVER

CONTENTS

Cover (#ufdeb3ace-1aa8-53a3-b6e1-4252c45e57ce)

Title Page (#u32b658c7-9f5c-5796-b430-c17a5c975a67)

Copyright (#u3f6d689c-d76d-5f95-b144-3208f664a613)

Dedication (#u98e50b41-1607-5266-af4d-d79094149e06)

Epigraph (#u06c33a8a-b3bc-564d-a37b-0d2b3bbb7ca4)

1. END THE ATTACHMENT! (#u7df283a0-97f1-5f6f-889f-c34036111665)

2. SAUERKRAUT AND MACE (#uca1daf64-84b5-55e9-9144-acdf07c515d9)

3. NEWS IS MARKETING (#u4b7318a8-72e1-5cab-b7d6-02caefc97ffb)

4. NOTHING ABOUT YOU IS BAD (#u1a69b05a-0e0b-5b79-b14d-df9a66000119)

5. PLIGHT OF THE BOOKWORM (#litres_trial_promo)

6. ART IS DESPAIR WITH DIGNITY (#litres_trial_promo)

7. RELEASING THE TOOL (#litres_trial_promo)

8. EIGHT KNOTS (#litres_trial_promo)

9. THE STOIC GLACIER METHOD (#litres_trial_promo)

10. WAR CASH (#litres_trial_promo)

11. THE SPEECHLESS OTHERS (#litres_trial_promo)

12. THE PASSENGER YEARS (#litres_trial_promo)

13. THE ANIMAL RULE (#litres_trial_promo)

14. THE NUTKINISTAS (#litres_trial_promo)

15. I MELT WITH YOU (#litres_trial_promo)

16. NEVER THE SAME AGAIN (#litres_trial_promo)

17. OFFENSE IS MANDATORY (#litres_trial_promo)

18. THE CURS (#litres_trial_promo)

19. MAYBE YES, MAYBE NO (#litres_trial_promo)

20. SOMETHING BAD MUST HAVE HAPPENED (#litres_trial_promo)